Forbes has ranked the states for business. Wisconsin has come in at #42*, two spots down from last year and a lot lower than the Doyle years.

The (lack of) money quote is this:
The results have been middling at best as job growth is projected to be second worst in the U.S. through 2016.

Obviously, it's not working.

Then just a few days later, PolitiFact called him out on his claim that he created nearly 100,000 jobs since taking office. They gave him credit for only about a third of the jobs he claimed to have created. I pointed out that those jobs were from Governor Jim Doyle's budget and policies and that he created a lot less than that.

In fact, I'd still wouldn't be a bit surprised if Walker's actual numbers were negative.

Walker deployed his damage control team which promptly admitted that Walker's promise of creating 250,000 jobs in his first term was nothing but a pipe dream:

The department’s new Wisconsin Economic Outlook report says the state will end up adding 38,000 jobs for 2011 and 2012. Going forward, the report predicts Wisconsin will add another 36,000 jobs in 2013 with slightly faster growth in 2014.

Still, that would leave Walker more than 100,000 jobs short of his 250,000-job pledge, which was the centerpiece of his 2010 campaign for governor.

As the gentle reader might have expected, Walker's damage control teamed blamed his poor showing on everything but sunspots and himself, of course:

“Several factors are in play to slow down the economic recovery: fiscal uncertainty at the national level, concern about the European economy, weakness in China’s economy, slower exports and investments, weak domestic demand, persistent unemployment, tight credit and slow recovery of the housing market,” the report said. “The state economy followed the national economy into the recession and it shows a similar pattern in the recovery. Total Wisconsin employment will return to its 2008 peak level of 2.9 million jobs in mid-2015 or earlier.”

November between the Economic Outlook's forecast and the reality, and it also means more growth is needed to catch up. So if you use the Economic Outlook's projections of 2% private sector job growth in 2013 and 1.4% in 2014, and put it to the November 2012 job figures, the state ends up with just over 2,400,000 private sector jobs at the end of 2014, which ends the total job growth in the 4 years of Fitzwalkerstan at...less than 80,000. Not exactly 250K, is it?

This looks especially bad when you look at the private sector Walker jobs gap. If Wisconsin had merely created jobs at the same pace as the rest of the country, we'd already be at 89,000 private sector jobs, and might have a shot at the 250,000 level by the end of 2014.

Jake also points out that personal income in the state has sunk to new lows, thanks to Act 10, no doubt. And with that, the state's revenue numbers are going to come in super low.

And with low revenue numbers, Walker's phony budget will blow up and he will start cutting and privatizing like there's no tomorrow.

1 comment:

Thanks for the props, Capper. Although to clarify, Wisconsin income did rise in 2011 under Walker....because of the growth in the U.S. under President Obama. Wisconsin was dead last in the Midwest for per-capita income growth in 2011, has been middle-of-the-pack at best in 2012, and the revenue numbers for this fiscal year are also lagging as a result.

This is why I bring up the Walker jobs gap everywhere I can, because it gives a truer sense of how Wisconsin is specifically doing vs. the rest of the nation in the age of Fitzwalkerstan. And in stat after stat, Wisconsin falls massively short of both our Midwest neighbors, and the U.S. as a whole.